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In the long-awaited judgment in the Google Spain and Google case CJEU did not follow the opinion of Advocate General. It adopted an approach which is much stricter towards the operators of search engines. After striking down the data retention directive, CJEU yet again took a strong stand in favour of privacy. Interestingly only twice… » read more

The Court of Justice of the European Union has declared the so-called Data Retention Directive to be invalid. Interestingly enough, in 2013 the same Court ordered Sweden to make a payment of 3 million Euro for its delay in transposing this law. Back then the CJEU ruled that a delay in the transposition is liable… » read more

In each member states debates are conducted on the need to pay copyrights fees to a collecting society acting on behalf of authors. Every service provider or manufacturer that wishes to broadcast music to its employees or client needs to pay such a fee. This raises concerns as to the right to access culture and… » read more

Under EU law it is the author who decides about the public availability of his or her work. In Sweden an administrator of a website placed on his webpage hyperlinks to publicly available articles. Authors of the texts claimed that this violated their IP rights, because they did not give permission for this specific release… » read more

On 16 January 2014 the CJEU gave a preliminary ruling in the case (C-400/12) concerning the Directive 2004/38 on the right of citizens of the Union and their family members to move and reside freely within the territory of the Member States. Ms G. is a Portuguese national that moved to UK with her husband… » read more

A person whose rights are specified in a directive not properly implemented and who is in conflict with another private party cannot rely on the directive before the court. If the rights are not precisely named in the Charter, the only option is to claim compensation from the state that failed to adopt appropriate national… » read more

The law on the marital status is a competence of the Member States. The EU law prohibits, however, discrimination in employment based on sexual orientation. Recently the CJEU ruled that same sex couples who enter into registered partnerships deserve the same benefits at the workplace as the married employees, the reason being that their legal… » read more

Ms Abdullahi, aged 22, was born in Somalia. In 2011 she fled her country and went to Syria. Afterwards, through Turkey she escaped to the EU. First she entered Greece, and then travelled through Macedonia, Serbia to Hungary. After crossing the border between Hungary and Austria she was arrested. In Austria, Ms Abdullahi lodged an… » read more

Can copyright holders demand from internet service providers (ISPs) blocking access to sites that violate copyrights? According to Advocate General Cruz Villalon, they can. Judgment passed in the UPC Telekabel case will add to the growing CJEU case law related to the obligations of online intermediaries. It will enrich the ongoing debate on blocking websites… » read more

In the first substantive discussion on the human rights situation in Azerbaijan at the Council of Europe since the defeat in January of a key resolution at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), today a group of Azerbaijani and international human rights groups hosted a side event titled “Pre-election crackdown: human rights… » read more

The European Union and the Council of Europe take a number of legislative initiatives and develop recommendations that have an impact on human rights in Europe. This blogs aims to comment on the impact of EU and CoE on european human rights from a CEE cou